DayZ Standalone Nears 2 Million Copies Sold, Big Update Inbound

DayZ mastermind and mod wizard Dean Hall on Friday announced that his standalone alpha has sold 1.7 million copies. Earlier this year, less than a month after it was introduced last December, Hall announced the title had sold one million copies. Some big-budget releases can’t manage to reach those numbers, let alone the 1.7 million mark. If that wasn’t enough, Hall revealed that the Arma 2 mod iteration had sold over 2 million copies—collectively that’s over 3 million people (math!) playing DayZ.

Since it was released in December, DayZ has become a peculiar beast. The simple survival premise has captivated gamers all across the world, and has clearly been an enormous success. Despite the game pulling no punches about its alpha status, gamers are clearly onboard with Hall’s post-apocalyptic vision, which can be both frustrating and highly thrilling.

At $29.99 a pop, Hall and his crew have managed to throw the publishing model on its head, giving gamers a glimpse of his game well ahead of its intended release; Hall has previously said the game isn’t expected to hit beta until 2015, though with the DayZ dev team continuing to grow, that timeframe could get pushed up.

On that note, Hall said Bohemia Interactive, publisher of DayZ standalone, had acquired Caldron Studios, whose 25 developers could be put on DayZ duty. In the past few months, Hall and his team have introduced a ton of updates to help stabilize the game and make it a more fluid experience. Being in alpha, it’s certainly not without its glaring faults, but more updates are expected soon, including a big one before the end of April. The next update is expected to include loot respawn changes, the addition of a crossbow and the ability to use fireplaces for cooking.

Down the road, Hall expects more weapons to be introduced, along with a rag doll physics system for players. Hunting is also on the team’s roadmap, as is the introduction of other weapons and advanced weather effects. Even beyond that—into 2015 territory—Hall said the team wants to introduces cars, trucks, planes and more, which are currently available in the DayZ mod.